


which reason knows not (Six Facts about Tendo Choi (Bending AU)

by Riana1



Series: all our elements combined (Bending AU) [5]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 06:58:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riana1/pseuds/Riana1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.”<br/>― Blaise Pascal</p>
            </blockquote>





	which reason knows not (Six Facts about Tendo Choi (Bending AU)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Enchantable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantable/gifts), [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/gifts).



> More freaky elemental powers and why heart is an awesome power.

1.To say Tendo Choi comes from a family of benders is at best an understatement.

On his mother's side, six out of ten of his first cousins are earthbenders, three are airbenders, and nobody was sure about Julio (other the fact he seemed to be able to bend money out of everyone's wallet but his own). He spent the majority of his childhood summers in a shifting patchwork of alliance and enmity among his cousins while his mother and aunts sunned themselves on the beaches of Arica.

His most vivid memory of those times came after a particularly brutal rejection out of the cadre of his cousins, the cause of the conflict was hazy, but the brilliant bruise where the flying dirt clod hit Tendo's shoulder was all too clear. Tendo remembered curling up against the backside of the whitewashed wall and sniveling when his older cousin Paloma found him.

She has been an unnerving slip of a girl, the only airbender and only girl in a pit of rough and tumble boys, never still or static between studying dance, running the house, or working in the bakery on the plaza. Tendo could always hear her a mile away for all her light feet; Paloma wore a dozen copper bracelets on each wrist and made music like a windchime with each step.

Tendo remembered rubbing his eyes, the smell of sugar that always clung to her skin, and the jingle, jingle of her bracelets as Paloma knelt down and ruffled his hair, asking, "why the tears, _mi cielito_?"

Somehow she understood the entirety of his garbled summation of the afternoon's events because before Tendo could blink, he was sitting in the quiet of the kitchen with a plate of milk and sugar cookies and his cousin busying about. "You know, _mi cielito_ , all those boys have rocks in their heads- they think having a talent for earth bending makes them _muy macho_. No need to better themselves after all, are they not 'masters of the earth'."

Paloma threw up her hands in the with a loud clang of her bracelets before swirling around to point at Tendo. "Mark my words, those lazy boys are going to end up working in the quarry, doing nothing but lifting useless rock because actual mining takes /skill/, not just earth bending."

Paloma paused and shrugged.

"Except Julio. That boy is going to end as a politician or in jail."

She motioned Tendo to come to stand beside her. He toddled over and felt the hair rise up on his arms when Paloma leaned over to whisper in his ear. "Aim just below the heart, right here," Paloma said, pushing gently his solar plexus,"that is how you fight benders- never give them range."

"Close enough to kiss," she continued, dropping a quick kiss on his cheek,"or kill."

The world tilted abruptly before stopping at an acute angle. Paloma smiled down angelically, one hand resting on his stomach, and the other, holding him up from the floor.

"And remember those _bichos_ only can bend in a straight line."

2\. Not one of his cousins ever spoke a word of how Amado or Desi got 'sick' the next day or how they ended up being Tendo's best buddies for the rest of that summer.

Tendo still regularly e-mails Desiderio out of all his cousins. They swap construction stories, cat videos, and family gossip- Amado working with the tourists in the mountains, Aunt Isa getting a new husband twenty years younger than her, and whether or not there was enough evidence to pin Julio to the wall after his third re-election scandal.

3\. Tendo gets the job on the ferry because his grandfather, no matter that he couldn't bend tea in a cup. The weathered old foreman merely looked Tendo straight in the eye and slapped him on the back, declaring Tendo had the old man's heart and that was all that mattered.

4\. Tendo Choi on paper is J-Tech Chief LOCCENT Officer for the Hong Kong Shatterdome. Unofficially, he the one man pump that keeps the lifeblood of the Corps flowing be it video monitors, vibrating motors, or black market vodka.

The last bit saved Tendo from finding a local chiropractor- bear hugs from Aleksis were better. **  
**

5\. Everyone knows about San Francisco and his grandfather after Naomi's story hit the stands.

Only Stacker and Alison know about his cousin in Cabo, getting crushed by Kaiceph after rescuing a half a dozen ballerinas when the last act of Swan Lake was interrupted by the ceiling caving in (and only because they are the only two earthbenders too talented for Tendo to risk lying to. He knows the stories about how some benders are so skilled they can feel a man's heartbeat in their heels. He tries not to reason how he ended up marrying one and following the other straight to the ends of the earth.)

6.Retirement suits some people better than others, Tendo decides, watching the third survivor of the historic suicide run on the Breach fiddle with the tiny umbrella in his untouched drink and scowling rather obviously at the other two from across the room. It is amazing, Tendo thinks wryly, how six months as a stay at home dad to a three year old boy and twin newborns could do more to sharpen his people reading skills than running the Anchorage Shatterdome ever could- because that look on Chuck Hansen's face was the perfect cross of Ava's I-want-that face and Alida I-don't-know-to-get-that face.

Except Chuck Hansen would be kind enough to spare everyone's ears and just set fire to a table to vent his frustrations.

Sighing, Tendo picked himself up and ambled over to the table with the Aussie pilot and cheerily asked, "Never figured you to be this shy, Chuck." Chuck Hansen jerked his head up, snorting steam like a locomotive at rest.

Tendo continued blithely,"Sighing like a schoolgirl isn't going to get you anywhere. Go over and talk to them. Politely. Like they taught you in the press conferences." He stopped when an inch long flame flickered out of Chuck's left nostril.

"Or better yet, just smile and nod- let those baby blues work their magic before you ruin it by opening your mouth."

The little paper umbrella started to curl and blacken around the edges when Tendo dropped down to hiss in Chuck's ear. "Listen you dinkum dill, I am the one you earbashed after you bloody broke your elbow bending it at that /particular/ bottleshop. I am the one who cleaned up the kitchen after you chundered all over the place. Stop grizzling and ask one of them to dance, now."

Tendo finished the tasty drink with a proud slurp when an amused Raleigh lead a scowling Chuck onto the dance floor just as the band moved into a fast paced swing number. He picked up his phone to click a picture of both pilots dancing in increasingly acrobatic moves that had half the crowd clearing the dance floor in a move for safety (and the other half to get a better angle to take pictures).

"Close enough," Tendo noted before forwarding the shot of Raliegh's and Chuck's faces mere inches apart to Mako's phone. He knew she forgot it in the hotel and judging from the glimmer in her eyes, she would want a copy.> 

**Author's Note:**

> I do not know Aussie and I am sorry for any mistakes.
> 
> dinkum- fair
> 
> dill- idiot
> 
> earbash- talk incessantly
> 
> bend your elbow- to drink 
> 
> bottleshop- liquor store
> 
> clunder- throw up; vomit
> 
> grizzle- complaint
> 
> Also free story to the first one to get the any of the puns I put into this. (hint the names).


End file.
